Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

This is another meeting, of course, of our veterans affairs committee. Today we have a video conference dealing with the study of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board selection process.

Today we're going to have Victor Marchand, the chair, and Dale Sharkey, director general--and oh, look, there you are. Well, that was fast. I'm quite impressed.

The way it generally works here is you have 20 minutes to present, and then after that we begin with questions on pre-selected rotations from the various parties.

So for 20 minutes, as you choose to split it up between the two of you, the floor is yours.

[Victor Marchand, Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your invitation.

I'm pleased to have an opportunity to speak with you today on behalf of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board and to give you an overview of the past year and the year to date, and to answer any questions you might have.

With 12 new members starting with VRAB in 2006-07, and six new members appointed in 2007-08, this has been an intense time, with significant efforts going towards training new members and integrating them into the board's work. As you know, VRAB is an independent quasi-judicial tribunal that operates at arm's length from the minister and reports directly to Parliament through the Minister of Veterans Affairs.

The majority of our claims are represented by the Bureau of Pensions Advocates, which is separate from the board. Our mandate is to provide an independent appeal program for disability compensation. Since 1995 we have adjudicated over 108,000 claims, and of the 175,000 disability compensation recipients, approximately 6% have had a VRAB decision.

We make every effort to try to provide as timely and efficient a process as possible, but the reality is that some cases take longer than others to process due to their complexity. To help appellants better understand our process, we have developed a brochure that outlines the process and answers key questions that applicants may have. We will be sending your committee copies of these brochures in December.

Here are the latest statistics. During the last 16 months there has been a significant decrease in the review claims pending a hearing; there's been a 50% decrease at review. At the same time, there has been a 25% increase in the pending appeals claims. In the last fiscal year of 2006-07, the BPA received 15,000 claims, of which 43% were counselled out; and VRAB finalized 7,132 decisions. For the year to date, we are on par to hear another 7,000 cases, maintaining the high volume of cases that were heard last year.

We have been doing a lot of analysis on the length of time claims are in the system with both the representatives and the board. The timeframe for applicants from the day they contacted BPA, or another representative, to the day they received their decision is, on average, 7.5 months for a review and 10 months for an appeal. You should know that for much of that time the claim is with the representative and not in the control of the board. Representatives are often challenged to obtain relevant documents, such as medical reports, and to prepare a case.

VRAB does not have any significant backlog of cases ready to be heard. With full membership now, the board has a greater capacity to hear cases than ever before. We have been working with the BPA and the Royal Canadian Legion to try to bring as many cases forward as possible to be heard.

For 2006-07, the favourability rate was 60.7% for reviews and 37.5% for appeals where the decision was varied in favour of the applicant. These numbers have to be put in context. For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs rendered 24,000 first decisions in the last fiscal year, and of those, we finalized over 5,700 review claims. As you can appreciate, we're not varying every departmental decision.

The member selection process was reformed in December 2004. We were one of the first agencies to have a revamped selection process that's both effective and transparent. We have now been doing this for three years, thus we have experience, and we are now taking the time to reflect on whether we need to make adjustments to any of our criteria. The process is in three stages. First is the screening committee, then the written assessment, and finally the interview and reference check.

From December 2004 to the present, nine cycles were held, 659 applications were received, 446 were screened in, 397 wrote an exam, 239 passed the exam, 234 applicants were interviewed, 197 passed the interview, and four withdrew. Out of all these numbers, 25 were appointed from the pool. There are presently 168 qualified candidates in the pool. In 2006-07, 12 new members were appointed. In 2007-08, six new members were appointed.

The board currently has 28 members on VRAB. All have permanent status. Fourteen are deployed: there are three in British Columbia, one in Alberta, six in Ontario, and four in Quebec. Fourteen members are stationed in Charlottetown. Of all these members, 13 are bilingual and eight are female.

Before I conclude and defer to the director general, I would also ask you to note what I think is an important highlight of our objectives in this year: the institution of a new complaint process.

Dale, please go ahead.

[Dale Sharkey, Director General, Veterans Review and Appeal Board]

With the advent of the bill of rights and the new veterans ombudsman, the board realized that we should have perhaps a more formalized process for individuals dissatisfied with the manner in which they were treated by VRAB employees or members, and one that would also give them an opportunity to provide us with feedback or input into our process, so we put in place a process that is relatively formal but at the same time flexible in allowing individuals to initiate a complaint in a number of different ways, whether by phone, by email, or through the forum we have made available through our Internet site.

We implemented this process in October 2006. To date we have received 21 complaints that we would call formal. All these complaints are given time and are investigated; depending on our findings, we will take appropriate action, and of course each and every individual will receive a written reply from the board.

There is a range in terms of the kinds of complaints we receive. They generally include the manner in which they were questioned at hearings, the length of time for the claims, and the questions that members may have asked at the hearing relating to the credibility of evidence or the applicant's testimony. They may feel there was a lack of professionalism at the hearing or that all the evidence they have was not examined and thoroughly canvassed.

Of course, this complaint process doesn't address someone who is dissatisfied with the outcome of their decision. That, as you know, is the whole reason for the board; in the cases of those individuals, we educate and inform them on what the next level of redress would be and make sure they're aware of their options.

So far we've had some good success, and we hope it will complement the introduction of the ombudsman's office.

[Victor Marchand]

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion…

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

You just said you were finished. Is that right?

[Victor Marchand]

I would like to thank you, once again, for this opportunity. If you have any questions for either Ms. Sharkey or myself, we are at your full disposal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

No problem. We notice there is a significant lag when you switch languages, that's all.

In terms of our list of questioners, Mr. Valley with the Liberals is up first for seven minutes.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Marchand and Ms. Sharkey. You are becoming frequent guests at our committee. I think this is the third time you have been here recently, and we're running out of questions to ask you. Last time many of our questions circulated around the appointments that hadn't been made to the board or the shortage on the board, and through your report we now know that you are full.

I asked you a question back in September or February, on one of your last two visits, and maybe you will have a chance to answer it now or can answer better now that the board is full. It is about the number of board members. I think you said it's 28; you just reported on it briefly a minute ago. Is that enough to cover all the decisions, because you have no backlog? Are you confident now?

You were confident before that 28, if you ever got to that number, would be enough. You are at that number now, and you just said you have no backlog, so will that do the job?

[Victor Marchand]

Yes, indeed.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

We always have concerns about appointments, to make sure they don't become partisan and to make sure that the best people are on the board. My questions to you in one of those two meetings--I'm not sure which one--were on some of the concerns about the process. You mentioned that with respect to the cities, you do hold hearings throughout Canada. I forget how many different sites again. Could you repeat that?

[Victor Marchand]

There are 33.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

But when those hearings are heard, the next appeal process always goes back to Charlottetown, does it?

[Victor Marchand]

Yes, as a general rule, but not necessarily. We've held appeal hearings on occasion outside of Charlottetown, for instance, to accommodate the Legion in Ottawa. We will be initiating a new process, and this is BPA's initiative. They will be fanning out some of their appeal work to their regional lawyers. Most of the appeals will nonetheless be heard in Charlottetown but will be argued by BPA regional lawyers in the months to come. We're trying to spread the appeal work across the BPA system.

But as a rule, and to answer your question directly, appeals are heard and held in Charlottetown.

[Dale Sharkey]

And we'll use video conferencing for those lawyers who are spread out across the country.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you for making the effort to get out into the regions, because that has always been a concern, being from northwestern Ontario, that we can get to where the people are. It's costly to travel and everything else, and technology is going to allow us to use this method. I encourage you to continue with that. I hope you have a fine success in getting on into the regions, because it's important, as you know. First of all, when they come to you, they're coming for a reason. They're upset about something. And then the process happens and the appeal is that much more stressing. So I think it's important to provide the service wherever you can, although we realize the restrictions of travel and everything else.

One of the questions that has been talked about is the war service veterans. The number of decisions are decreasing. I assume that has a lot to do with the fact of their advanced age and that we're losing a lot every month. The other side of it is that the number of decisions you're making is greatly increasing. Is that because you have a full complement now? You have all your people in place.

[Victor Marchand]

We have all our people in place. I think there was, just at the beginning of the implementation period of modernization, back in April 2006, a sudden increase in claims and applications being filed at that time. That bubble of cases has been processed, and that was in fact the reason for which we were extremely busy over the past year, year and a half. And we will continue being busy because of that influx of applications in April 2006 for a while longer.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Can you refresh my memory why the bubble was...? Obviously you were short of board members.

[Victor Marchand]

There was a bubble and we were short of members, so it was the worst-case scenario for us at that time. We initiated a very--how shall I call it--courageous program of asking our board members to sit alone all throughout last fall, which not only helped us to process our regular work, but it allowed us to process 500 more files at that time. I think the organization was flexible, and we adapted to the situation and we faced the situation. It turns out it was the correct strategic action to take at the time, and we're proud of that.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you.

We talked about the bubble, and I'm not sure why it happened. We've heard in this committee before that the veteran who's retiring now from the force is much younger, more sophisticated, more knowledgeable. Was that part of the bubble or do you foresee another one coming in the future?

[Dale Sharkey]

I can perhaps speak to that.

In the department, when they introduced the new Veterans Charter, which changed for the modern-day veterans to go from a pension to an award, they had a great influx of applications coming in prior to the introduction of the disability award. People wanted, I think, to perhaps be part of the pension regime or did not understand the process. So in that particular year they received about 35,000 applications, which was thousands more than they would normally have projected to receive in any given year. I think from discussions with departmental folks, in the subsequent year they perhaps received fewer applications because many people got in the door earlier on, before the new Veterans Charter. That's the bubble we're talking about that's now moving its way through the various steps in the system.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Lastly, we talked about getting out into the regions and how to serve some of the far-flung corners of Canada when these appeals happen.

Are there any other plans? Now that your board is full—you've dealt with that issue—are there any other plans on changes to deal with any of the things you may face in the future? Are there challenges we don't see right now that could bring that other bubble in or could increase pressure on you? Is there anything you can plan out into the future on providing service?

[Victor Marchand]

The system in my mind is functioning and performing correctly. There are some improvements that can be made in the time it takes between the registration of a claim to the board and the actual hearing of the case. We'll be working over that very specific part of the process.

So the waiting time between someone registering with us and getting their hearing will be worked on. That, I think, is the challenge of the upcoming years.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you very much, Mr. Valley.

Now we move over to the Bloc Québécois, with Mr. Perron for seven minutes.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Good morning, Mr. Marchand. I have an interesting question for you. Can you hear me?